You weren't alone in thinking Google overpaid for YouTube
And you know what? Google CEO Eric Schmidt agrees. Kind of. CNET reports that in a deposition earlier this year, Schmidt stated that he asked Google's board of directors to approve the $1.65 billion figure, even though the board only believed YouTube was worth between $600 and $700 million at the time.
Basically, if Google didn't spend the extra money, Schmidt was under the impression that another company would purchase the web's most popular video site instead. And while YouTube wasn't making any real money in 2006, Google has continued to build the site's traffic while rolling out several different revenue models.
What do you think. In retrospect, do you still think Google paid too much for YouTube?
I don't know if this is a labor of love or merely the brainchild of four very gifted games designers, but Level Up is a really weird mash-up of gaming elements that you have probably never seen in a Flash game before.
Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
utterer said 4:17PM on 10-06-2009
YES THEY DID
Reply
ZeRo said 4:20PM on 10-06-2009
I don't even know how I would even go about assessing its value! So I can't really say!
Reply
Adam said 4:57PM on 10-06-2009
No. In the long run I think they'll make the money back, either directly through revenue generated on the site, or indirectly through all the new search data they're able to get from it (after all, more search queries are performed on YouTube in a given day than on Yahoo!)
Reply
DeadlYRage said 7:26PM on 10-06-2009
If they did, it is pocket change to them. Everyone is still going to youtube, they will cash in some how.
Reply
j said 8:14PM on 10-06-2009
no, they didnt. They had to over pay for youtube to avoid the many hundreds of lawsuits viacom et al was planning to hit youtube AFTER they were purchased. Those media companies were given stock options that they were able to cash in after the buyout. I believe their was some kind of agreement made so that youtube was not sued and everyone made money....off of google's back. i wish i had the conspiracy story saved that pointed to all of this.
Reply
Anthony said 7:23AM on 10-07-2009
It was actually a good deal, the most popular website on the internet (or at least the top 3), and the internet is a very big place, so that is a very big accomplishment. So really it was a very good deal, how much would you spend for youtube?
Reply
Ji said 7:24AM on 10-07-2009
I think Google did what they had to do.
Reply
Ari said 8:01AM on 10-07-2009
I'm not exactly an expert in analyzing a website's worth, but YouTube is the biggest name in videos on the web. Period. Any money spent on any other video hosting site would've been money wasted, but for YouTube, I'm not so sure...
Reply
Reece said 8:54AM on 10-07-2009
From what I can tell they looked at the situation, decided that there was a risk of another company buying youtube and they took action on that risk. They had the means, so I won't fault them for it.
Reply
BDL said 10:29AM on 10-07-2009
They paid for the brand name, and for owning a video-sharing site that doesn't have to compete with YouTube's popularity. They'll make it up.
It also depends on who they thought the other buyer was. If they swiped YouTube from Microsoft, they did the smart thing.
Reply
Mysterius said 1:46AM on 10-08-2009
It was and is a huge sum, but YouTube was and is a huge site.
I remember when the acquisition took place that some thought YouTube would fade or be outcompeted, or that lawsuits would cripple it.
Well, I don't have the stats, but YouTube is if anything more popular and dominant than it was back then, and Google has proven adept at handling lawsuits. (Those Google lawyers sure earn their keep, though.)
Overall, I think it's a keeper for Google.
Nothing like eBay and Skype, at any rate.
Reply
Chris said 12:53PM on 10-10-2009
the real question is: Why is google still running google video?
Reply
joe said 9:23AM on 10-18-2009
they are not. G-Video is now just a video search engine, which finds old videos uploaded there, and youtube videos.
The Sexiest Man said 6:31PM on 10-13-2009
I would need to see some numbers on ad revenues and page impressions to determine how good a deal its become.
they sure as hell have loved the new search data that youtube has brought them.
perfecting the algorithm... isn't that still the ultimate goal?
Reply
Edward Kmett said 1:36AM on 11-01-2009
No. I don't think they ultimately paid too much for YouTube. Recall that when they purchased YouTube they were more interested in controlling the legal battleground than they were in YouTube itself. Viacom and others already had their sights set on putting video behind a walled garden, which would have left Google out in the cold when it comes to indexing video. As a strategic play, they've been able to dig into deep coffers to pay for what lawsuits they lose and they've been able to avoid losing too many. On it is hard to imagine that YouTube's legal and financial team would have been able to weather the storm. Overall, they've managed to do what they set out to, and avoid getting marginalized in the video search space. They own the market. At the end of the day, that is worth a lot, even if they don't know how to monetize it today.
Reply
ewald said 6:16AM on 11-20-2009
What was Google's market cap at that time? 100 billion or so?
So investing 1,5%-2% of it's own (perceived) value in a potential rising star does not seem outragious to me. I have made bigger bets in my live (relatively speaking of course...).
ew
Reply